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About OSCON

Once considered a radical upstart, open source has moved from disruption to default. Its methods and culture commoditized the technologies that drove the Internet revolution, and transformed the practice of software development. Collaborative and transparent, open source has become modus operandi, powering the next wave of innovation in cloud, data, and mobile technologies.

OSCON is where all of the pieces come together: developers, innovators, businesspeople, and investors. In the early days, this trailblazing O’Reilly event was focused on changing mainstream business thinking and practices; today OSCON is about how the close partnership between business and the open source community is building the future. That future is everywhere you look.

Now in its 13th year, OSCON is the best place on the planet to prepare for what comes next, from learning new skills to understanding how new and emerging open source technologies are going to impact how we live, work, and do business. In keeping with its O’Reilly heritage, OSCON is a unique gathering of all things open source, where participants find inspiration, confront new challenges, share their expertise, renew bonds to community, make significant connections, and find ways to give back to the open source movement. The event has also become one of the most important venues to unveil ground-breaking open source projects and products.

"For those who have not been to OSCON, it's a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more. OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions." - Zack Urlocker, InfoWorld

Experience OSCON

Through hundreds of sessions, tutorials, activities, and events, OSCON 2011 will educate, provoke, and inspire, with:

Hundreds of sessions covering the full range of open source languages and platforms

Practical tutorials that go deep into technical skills, new features and applications, and best practices

Inspirational (and relevant) keynote presentations

Over 2,500 open source developers, hackers, experts, vendors, and users of all levels—many of whom share your interests

An Expo Hall packed with an impressive array of open source projects and products

A vibrant "hallway track" where attendees, speakers, journalists, and vendors debate and discuss important issues

Fun evening events and receptions, Birds of a Feather sessions, awards ceremonies, late night parties, OSCON activities around town, and plenty of networking opportunities for everyone

Who Should Attend

OSCON welcomes anyone who’s passionate about open source:

Developers and programmers

Architects

Engineers

CxOs

Designers

Sys admins

Hackers and geeks

Analysts

IT Managers

Enterprise developers and managers

Entrepreneurs and business development professionals

Community leaders and managers

Activists

Trainers and educators

Vendors and suppliers in the open source ecosystem

O'Reilly is committed to promoting diversity at OSCON 2011, and at all of our events. Read more.

Why Attend?

No matter the economic climate, a strong technology foundation is the key for moving your business and projects forward. In just five information-packed days (and nights) OSCON gives you the tools you need to succeed:

Learn techniques you can use to write great code

Get the information you need to migrate from expensive commercial installations to more efficient, cost-effective open source solutions

Explore innovations in system and network administration that your company can start implementing immediately to increase efficiency

Learn how to maximize productivity, increase ease of use, and lower the cost of deployment, from databases to cloud computing

Get exposure to the most promising projects and people to give you first-mover advantage in analyzing new tools and software

Stay ahead of the curve with new technologies, platforms, and languages like HTML5, Android, Clojure and OpenStack.

Receive hype-free guidance that will help your business build a solid footing for future success

OSCON Kudos

It’s hard to explain the sort of impact that a good conference can have on your career and even your life, but we can’t express how much you should go to one in order to gain inspiration, have fun and learn a whole bunch of new stuff you can take back to your workplace.—Martijn Verburg, London Java Community

As Tim says, one never has trouble finding an interesting conversation at OSCON...the content, both hallway and in-session, shined... there are people I literally see only at this event every year, and while remote collaboration is all well and good, it’s nice to have a beer with people every so often.—Stephen O'Grady, tecosystems, RedMonk

For the past few years, we at NYTimes.com have been attending OSCON. It has become the premier conference for us because it offers so many opportunities to engage with fellow developers. We’ve met new friends, given talks, led Birds-of-a-Feather sessions...—Derek Gottfrid, NYTimes.com

Speaking at conferences like linux.conf.au and OSCON is great fun. It's challenging to speak to an audience that's so diverse that it includes both the creator of the Linux kernel and students who just discovered it exists. It's humbling to know that the intelligence and achievement in the audience dwarfs anything I've ever done.—Simon Phipps, Sun

OSCON is a great opportunity for us to really get our geek on and meet with some of the industry's sharpest people. Love the 'Birds of a Feather' sessions. We had a great time at what we consider the best conference we get to attend.—Nick Thuesen, Senior Software Engineer, NYTimes.com

For those who have not been to OSCON, it's a great technical conference covering the whole spectrum of open source, including Linux, MySQL, the LAMP stack, Perl, Python, Ruby on Rails, middleware, applications, cloud computing, and more. OSCON always has great keynotes, tutorials, and evening Birds-of-a-Feather sessions. As with many conferences, a lot of the meat takes place in hallway conversations and impromptu sessions.—Zack Urlocker, InfoWorld

Program Chairs

Edd Dumbill is program chair for Strata and the O'Reilly Open Source Convention. A technologist and writer, he also leads the design and implementation of conference software at O'Reilly. Edd was the editor of XML.com for many years, and program chair for the XML Europe and XTech conferences.

Sarah Novotny is a founding partner of Blue Gecko. She manages and is a senior administrator in the Open Databases / LAMP practice, which does remote administration and management of databases around the world. Sarah also runs the Seattle meetups for LinuxChix, MySQL, and one focused on open source and general geeky socializing.

Conference Diversity

O'Reilly Media believes in spreading the knowledge of innovators. We believe that innovation is enhanced by a variety of perspectives, and our goal is to create an inclusive, respectful conference environment that invites participation from people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, and sexual orientation.

We're actively seeking to increase the diversity of our attendees, speakers, and sponsors through our calls for proposals, other open submission processes, and through dialogue with the larger communities we serve.

This is an ongoing process. We are talking to our program chairs, program committees, and various innovators, experts, and organizations about this goal and about ways they can help us achieve it.

Here are some ways you can help us build a more diverse conference experience: